In a bid to grow the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Imo State, the Imo State Internal Revenue Service (IIRS) and the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Investment have pledged to strengthen their collaboration. This commitment was made during a courtesy visit of the Acting Executive Chairman of IIRS, Mr. Justice R. Okoye and his team to the Ministry on Tuesday, 12th November, 2024.
The Commissioner Chief Barr. Rex Anunobi welcomed the IIRS team while congratulating the Chairman on his performance since his re-appointment.
He expressed full support of the Ministry to enhance the State’s revenue generation strategies.
Chief Barr. Rex shared that the Ministry aims to visit markets to digitalize systems for improved data collection. This initiative would address unauthorized shop allocations ensuring better organization and transparency. He further highlighted challenges like illegal revenue collection, non compliance to tax payments and ways of combating them to ensure accountability, which is critical to effective IGR generation.
The Honourable Commissioner cited that enumeration of market stalls would boost revenue generation and emphasized that it would significantly contribute to funding critical State infrastructure and basic amenities. He also recommended that the use of ad hoc staff for revenue collection should be discontinued to enhance efficiency and transparency in the process.
In response, the IIRS Boss explained that many of the challenges encountered in revenue collection stem from the manual systems being used. He however assured the Commissioner that the new Revenue Management Solution (RMS) deployed by the Service will take care of the challenges and added making Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) a pre-requisite for shop allocation.